All in Management Consulting
The word “partnership” is used quite liberally these days, across just about all aspects of our lives - from the personal to the professional, whether we’re talking about our relationships, about our work colleagues or our suppliers and customers.
But what do we really mean, in any of these contexts, when we use that term?
The year was 1995 and I’d just started in Management Consulting. Those first few months were interesting, exciting and (very) busy. I hadn’t been staffed on a project as yet, so I busied myself by helping several partners with proposal development and pitch work. That involved lots of research, coordination of different perspectives and inputs across the firm, and plenty of deck preparation.
As a result, the hours were long. A typical day started at around 8 am and if I wrapped up by 9 or 10 pm, that was a ‘good’ day because it meant I could get a decent night’s sleep.
There’s a perennial debate about the value of generalists versus specialists, that is, are we better off as generalists or should we all work to become specialists. We all tend to have a particular view as to which one is actually better, certainly from a career development perspective. And usually our point of view is encapsulated in a popular figure of speech - or at least the portion(s) of it that we quote, to serve our case.
If we believe in the generalist approach, we like to use the term “Jack of all trades”, as in “She’s so versatile, she’s a Jack of all trades”.
“If you wish to improve, be content to appear clueless or stupid in extraneous matters." — Epictetus
I’ve been turning this quote over in my head for a long while now, and there’s something about it that resonates incredibly strongly with me.
The trouble is, I can’t quite figure out what.
Is it suggesting that if we are focused on becoming expert in a particular area, we mustn’t be afraid of appearing stupid or unknowledgeable i.e. that we’ve figured everything out already…
Episode 13 of the podcast is now available and today’s podcast wraps up this month’s focus on communications. In this episode, I talk about the secret to great communications - not saying anything.
The thing about giving advice is that it’s super easy to do at a distance. You can look at the options in a cold and calculated fashion, weigh up the pros and cons, and make definite judgements about the right path forward.
We see this firsthand in any education forum - specifically, business schools like those I studied at - where the case method is utilized. You study a specific situation, whether it’s related to people, strategy, operations, etc. You analyze the variables based on the information available. And then you make a logical, rational decision on what it takes to solve the specific problem at hand. Easy stuff.
In my last post, I talked about the importance of avoiding stasis in your strategy, that being comfortable with the middle ground is a straight path to irrelevance. Maybe not today, but certainly someday.
So a response - an active, progressive strategy to do something is absolutely essential. It’s essential to be on the front foot and proactively define a clear plan for continued success.
That doesn’t, however, have to mean going after the big boys head-to-head. It doesn’t necessarily mean trying to become THE market leader.
We tend to think of the middle ground as a safe space to be in. You’re not out on a limb at the bleeding edge, but you’re also not trailing the pack. There’s no bloodthirsty Coke versus Pepsi battle at play, but you’re also not spending your days fighting for survival.
It’s tempting to get comfortable there. You simply play your position, fight with other ‘middle of the road’ brands and focus on the ‘middle of the road’ customers
It’s amazing to me that the one subject that has had the most influence on our ability to get anything done in business (and, frankly, personal) life is also the one that is given the least attention (relatively) at Business School: working with people.
Don’t get me wrong - it’s not as if there isn’t any acknowledgement that it’s critical (there is) or that Professors don’t speak to its importance (they do).
I was speaking with a client the other day about a specific change initiative they were about to implement.
The client’s team had been working off of a planning process that was individualized and not institutionalized, and hence, had different leaders at the same level working at different levels of depth and rigor, from the amount of data they utilized during that process to the quality of the analysis and output.
Not an entirely uncommon phenomenon in many big companies and one that had evolved over the years as a result of organic and inorganic growth. All the same, this was now leading to missed opportunities and a lack of true strategic alignment.
Epictetus’ words are easy to understand, but difficult to practice. Not surprising, given that it’s in our nature to be liked, to gain approval, to be considered valuable.
The problem is that when we accept these opinions, when we consider ourselves to be “important”, we think we’ve “arrived” and achieved some special end-state or level of wisdom.
A common question when I’m discussing what I do for a living is whether there’s much travel involved. My answer is always that, yes, there’s a moderate amount of travel involved.
Of course, the term “moderate” means different things to different people. There are those who feel being on the road once a month for a couple of days is a lot. And then there are folks( in consulting, for example) who get on a plane week in, week out, flying out on Monday AM and flying home Thursday or Friday PM.
Every organization has that person. The one who raises issues, flags problems, talks about solutions and fixes to move the ball forward.
I’m not talking about the complainers - folks who have nothing better to do, and don’t have any real intent to solve the problem. I’m talking about those who want to get things done and are vocal about it. Very vocal, in fact. Sometimes, they’re in your face. Many times, they’re irritating. Many times, it feels like they’re too much.
I don’t subscribe to many email newsletters but one that I do like to read is from Rob Hatch and Chris Brogan of Owner Media Group. They always have great ideas and perspectives on doing business at a granular level - how to organize your thinking, how to position and market yourself and your products and so much more.
Rob recently sent an email about how we think about “ideas” in business, specifically referring to Chris’ book, Trust Agents, published ten years ago. He talked about how he still found the ideas discussed to be relevant. Still as applicable today as it was a decade ago.
“There's a concept in Hinduism called "dharma," which means "duty." Your dharma is to always do *the next right thing*, without attachment to the consequences (karma). When you follow your dharma, good karma naturally flows from it. When you don't, it doesn't.“
I’m not a religious person, nor would I call myself overly spiritual, but I do believe in the old saying, “what comes around, goes around”. Which is probably why the above tweet from Asha Rangappa resonated so strongly with me the other day.
There’s a difference between “personal” and “personalized”.
In an age where Marketers are working to find ways to make their messages more customized, more tailored, more specific to who we are, there’s still a marked difference between the two. Just because that email is addressed to you, or there’s a special offer made on your birthday, doesn’t actually make it personal. It’s simply programmed to appear that way.
Strategy is an interesting topic.
You and I can be working in similar areas of management. We can have gone through the same set of experiences in our time at our organization. We can even have a similar view of what defines success in our chosen markets. Yet we can have markedly different perspectives as to what approach it will take to get there. And that’s perfectly normal - in fact, it’s almost always a good thing.
If we’ve labored over a job or an initiative or a project (of any scale) for a concerted period of time, and it hasn’t delivered what it was supposed to, we’ll find ourselves asking that very question, in one form or another.
Am I done? Is it time? When is enough, enough?
Of course, it’s a difficult question to answer.
All too often, when we’re evaluating a new product or service idea, we get caught up in the notion of '“competitive dominance”. That there can only be one competitor who owns that space and, hence, competing in that market is a non-starter. Or, alternately, that there are so many players that that market has become commoditized. Either way, there’s no point playing in that space because the opportunity (for us) is gone.
Back in my early consulting days, I was asked to give a presentation to a prospective client and was handed a deck to present. My instructions were to go through the material, get comfortable with the content and then do a run-through with the partner with whom I’d be doing the pitch.
The content was right in my sweet spot, so I was pretty comfortable with the key messages that we needed to get across. But some of the material in the deck didn’t sit well with me.
